Putin indictment was no surprise to Maggie Valley insider

Mar. 21—It has been just over a year since Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in what many thought would be a David-Goliath battle where mismatched resources would assure a quick win for Russia.

The invasion was anything but that, and now Putin has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for his actions and has lost the battle both politically and militarily.

That's the assessment of David Crane, a Maggie Valley resident who has been at the center of the effort to hold Putin accountable for his actions in Ukraine. It's a job Crane is uniquely qualified for given his success indicting former Liberian President Charles Taylor for war crimes 20 years ago.

Crane, who is a distinguished scholar in residence at Syracuse University College of Law and founder of the Global Accountability Network, has spent the past year working on multiple indictments against Putin.

Crane shared his expertise and his insider's view with the public during a talk in Waynesville last Thursday hosted by the Haywood County Young Democrats and attended by about 60 people. Crane held out little hope for a negotiated settlement of the Russian-Ukraine conflict, despite Chinese President Xi Jinping's recent interest in brokering a deal.

Lost war, stature

Even though fighting is still ongoing in Ukraine, Crane made the case that Putin is done militarily as shown by his remaining strategy of sending poorly armed individuals to the front lines and resorting to mass destruction of nonmilitary and human targets in the country.

"We always thought the Russian Army was 10-feet tall," Crane told the crowd. "Then we found out they are a third-world army. Russia will not take Ukraine by force. They have no ability."

Politically, Putin is washed up, too, Crane said, noting the Russian president didn't expect all 24 NATO nations to present a united front in opposition to his Ukraine invasion. Not only that, two more nations (Finland and Sweden) are on the cusp of joining NATO, which has a tenet that an attack against one country in the alliance is an attack against all.

In addition, more than 1,000 companies have pulled out of Russia as part of the economic sanctions instituted shortly after the invasion — sanctions that have been taking a toll on the country.

And, 140 members of the United Nations General Assembly have passed resolutions condemning the Russian Federation for its actions.

"Russia has become a pariah state," Crane said. "Putin no longer has the stature he had pre-invasion. The intelligence elite has left the nation and the academic and tech people rejected a future that was grim. Void of the important people needed in a modern society, there's not a lot of freedom there anymore."

He predicted Putin's future could well be falling out of a 10-story building's window, or being poisoned, fates that often befall Russians with whom the country's hierarchy has lost confidence.

"In the matter of one day, Russia went from a respected country to the level of North Korea," Crane said of Feb. 23, 2022, the day of the Ukraine invasion. "This has changed the entire geo-political balance."

Legal future

Though Putin has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for illegally deporting children from Ukraine to Russia for adoption, neither the U.S. nor Russia recognizes the ICC authority. The indictment is largely symbolic, but it's possible Putin could be arrested outside Russian soil, Crane said.

A more important indictment would be one from the United Nations, Crane said, though a back-door approach is being employed since neither Russia nor the U.S. would vote for a resolution to indict.

The way the UN was set up is that any of the five permanent members of the organization's Security Council can veto any substantive resolution, which an indictment for war crimes would qualify as. The five permanent members of of the nine-member UN Security Council are China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Crane said the U.S. isn't on board with a Putin war crimes indictment for war crimes of aggression because the situation is similar to the U.S. Iraq invasion after 9/11, though the UN rules were different back then.

"The U.S. is testy about this," Crane said. "If we go after a head of state for aggression, the U.S. has boxed itself in."

When the UN was formed as an organization to resolve international conflicts peacefully, it was never envisioned that a member of the Security Council with veto power would be the one to commit war crimes in a conflict, Crane said.

There is an alternate route, however, as the U.N. General Assembly could indict Putin if three-fourths of the countries approve a resolution.

Despite the political hesitation from U.S. leaders to pursue a UN indictment, Crane said the U.S. "cannot be on the wrong side of history."

He said what happens will determine geopolitical accountability for the rest of the century.

"If we do nothing about Putin, it will be a very, very dark century," he said, adding that Putin was certain to be indicted, though enforcement was another matter. In fact, Putin was indicted the day after Crane's speech.

A negotiated settlement to the war is being pursued forcefully behind the scenes, Crane said, though he holds out little hope since saving face is of the utmost importance to dictators. Now backed into a corner militarily and politically, there few places to turn, though a possible option would be to abandon the Ukraine effort and attack Muldova where Putin could likely score a quick win to save face.

"I'd love to see this settled diplomatically, but Putin has zero options," he said. "We may have a regime change, but the problem with that is probably an even more nationalistic person will take power."

The best option is for an agreement to be reached where the rule of law will be followed.

"The invasion violated international law, international humanity laws and international criminal law. The rest of the dictators in the world are watching," Crane said, adding the stakes have never been higher, including a possibility of WWIII. "China will move into Taiwan, North Korea will move south, Iran is watching. We could have WWIII. I strongly believe the rule of law is more powerful than the rule of the gun. I take heart in that."